Upstream - Flatpack Democracy with Peter Macfadyen

Episode Date: September 1, 2016

Peter Macfadyen is the radical council member and previous Mayor of Frome. He is also the author of Flatpack Democracy, a DIY guide to creating independent politics. We interviewed him for our 3-part series "Welcome to Frome". Parts of this interview are featured in the series. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, co-creator of the Flat Pack Democracy Movement, former mayor, and current Froome Town Councillor. Hello, Peter. Welcome to Upstream. You were the mayor of Froome until recently. Can you tell us a little bit about your mayoral chains that you wore around your neck? My mayoral chains, sure. So I was a reluctant mayor. It was one of the things I said I wouldn't do.

And I was persuaded that it would be a good thing to do, mainly to get to know other parts of Froome and to meet people who I wouldn't otherwise meet within the community that I've lived for nearly 30 years. But one of the things that I knew I wanted to do at the beginning was to push a line which I'd pushed already as a councillor, which was to try and break down the barrier, if you like, between councillors, between authority and the people. And quite early

on, or very early on, I went to a school to talk about things ethical with the proper chain on of the mayor. I took the proper chain, which is made of gold. And we were talking about how this has probably been mined by, you know, South Africans paid nothing and all the rest. And they said, well, we'll make you an ethical chain if you want. So these children made me an ethical chain out of bits of old bicycle and bottle tops and so on. And then I wore that chain to open the fate of the school at the weekend. And then that led to the idea that anyone could make me a chain that represented what it was that they were doing, as long as it had something to do with things green and ethical and gorgeous, essentially. And so I ended up with about 25 chains of one sort or

another. And a guy called David Partner, who's a really top portrait photographer who lives in Froome, offered to take pictures of them. And another person who'd just come to Froome said he'd framed them all. And so they've ended up as an exhibition of the mayor's chains. But what they did was they told the story of a year in the life of Froome in a slightly different way, because they were picking up on renewable energy type things, on companies that were making things around recycling, but also on things like the Leg Club, which is an organisation that works with people with leg ulcers. And they made me the most outrageous chain with lots of medical equipment in it. So they were deliberately provocative,

and I think did what I wanted. Where are they now? Are they still up somewhere? At the moment, they're in a major gallery in Halifax called Dean Clough. And I think they're coming down to Winchester, where there is a gallery in the House of Commons, and we've been working on getting them there. They only take non-political pictures. And one of the things I did, which is not necessarily helpful in terms of getting them in there, is we put them across essentially around a whole thing that David Cameron said at the beginning of his time as Prime Minister, I suppose nearly 10 years ago. his time as Prime Minister, I suppose nearly 10 years ago, he said we need to take the power from the political elite and give it to the man and woman in the street, and then went on to do many things which have been rather different in many people's views. But anyway, we've got a bit of a rebranding exercise to do to lose that bit if we're going to get them into Westminster, but that's where I'd love to have them. Because I think it's really important that people see politicians, even at this lowly level, as just ordinary people,

you know, even if you are wearing a gold chain. So how did you come to be the mayor of Froome? How did I come to get into politics? Yes. By mistake. So I came to get into politics by, I was involved in the transition town movement in Froome, which was actually called Sustainable Froome, which is effectively the same thing. And part of the deal with that was that someone formed a relationship with the town council. I went to the town council and said, so what's your green environmental policy? And they

said, we've got a park. And I said, yeah, no, no, no. Talk to me about climate change and corridors of biodiversity and all that kind of thing. And they said, Peter, we've got a park. That's it. You know, so I was moaning about that in the pub with a group of other people who came at this from different angles, really. But we realised that we had a very unexciting council that could do a lot more. And there was masses of potential that they weren't taking. And in particular, that they spent all their time arguing along party political lines.

So they were allied to whichever Westminster or national group. And that was the sort of stance they took. So they were allied to whichever Westminster or, you know, national group. And that was the sort of stance they took. So they never did anything. And so we thought it would be fun to really just up the stakes in an election, which was horribly soon, about three months ahead. So with very little preparation, we thought, well, let's just have some fun and see if we can just get on the streets and make things happen with no expectation or intention of getting elected at that point. And I suppose I got drawn into it. And so at the moment when people put their hands up saying, you know, would you like to be a candidate? I stuck my nap too. And then the rest is history, as they say. So in that first election, 10 out of 17 of us got elected and I was one of them.

And then the mayoral bit is you kind of take it in turns. But as I say, I wasn't going to do it. Except that I've become aware by the time we needed to sort of up our whole image a bit or to really give things a bit of a boost in the last year before an election. And I realised that I would be good at doing that. So I went for it and enjoyed being the mayor. So how did that original group come together in the pub? It was the Griffin, right? Yeah. How did that particular group come together that evening? What was kind of the invitation or how did it start?

There were three or four people who often meet there who were, if I said the core, that's not quite true. I mean, they were the initial people who had this thought. And so I joined. I wasn't particularly part of that group. I was there for that night and then we had a second meeting in another pub afterwards where we thought 20 or 30 people might come and in fact 80 people came and by the end of that meeting we had more than enough candidates so then we realized that you know there was a real appetite for this so it wasn't particularly

predetermined or you know there wasn't a long history of desire to do this. It wasn't opportunistic in that sense. And so what's the problem with party politicians at the council level? Why can't they do anything? Is it because they need to vote along with their party? Is it because they're using the position as a stepping stone? What is it about, you know, the way that it was that wasn't functioning? Exactly. Both of those are a key to this. For us, there are three layers of politics before you even reach London, if you like. So we're at a town or parish level, which is legally the same thing. But so there's a town, then a district, then a county and then central government, if you like. And all of those in many places are political. So there's all sorts of problems, actually.

God, I could really go on now. many places are political. So there's all sorts of problems, actually. God, I could really go on now. There's one of the main ones I've come to realise later is that to stand for a political party, you need to be a member of that political party. So if you're a Tory in Froome, there might be, I don't know, but there's probably 50 or 60 people who are members of the Conservative or Tory party in Froome. So to stand, you'd have to be a member of that. So there's only 50 people. So maybe only, you know, half of them might want to stand, and maybe only half of those will be any good. So you're already down to a handful of 10 or 12 people. And that will be the same for the two other major parties as well. And you have to pay to be a member,

right? Probably not, maybe not much, but usually, yes, you pay. Well, no, definitely you'd pay. And you can't be a member, if you're a member of one party, you sort of legally can't be a member of another and so on. Whereas we have the whole lot. I mean, we have every adult in Froome can be a member. So immediately the pool of people who might want to stand, if you could persuade them to, as independents, is vast compared to the pool of party members.

And that's the same nationally. Less than 1% of people are members of potential voters and members of a political party. So which is crackers, really, that we've got a situation where it's a tiny, tiny number of people who define what the manifestos should be. Now, here's what's on the menu. And here are the people who are going to represent them. There's another 99% whose only involvement is every four years when they vote. So it's really time for the 99% to take over. There's a phrase in there, isn't there, which someone else has used, but around 99%. But that was the same here. So there's a very small pool of people in Froome who were standing, tiny. And the quality was, I shouldn't really say this, but some of the people, the quality of people was not good.

There was one guy who went to sleep all the time. I chaired a meeting with him with another hat on, which he came as the council representative. And this guy went to sleep very early in the meeting. And I sort of stopped and said, so what am I meant to do? He's gone to sleep. He always goes to sleep. Yeah, but he's our council representative. You know, that's just what he does.

Now, he may not have been well. I'm not knocking him, but it's kind of like how, you know, how dysfunctional is that? And there were others who weren't much better, to be honest. So it was a very low cadre of quality within a lot of the councils.

And that's true all across the country. Most councils don't have elections at all. There aren't enough people to stand. More, 60% don't have elections. In two levels, not just our level, but the next level up as well. Then what happens is once in, people tend to follow the ideology of the party.

So to use the Tories as an example, again, at the moment, they're into austerity, not spending money not borrowing so we had probably the best example is the cheese and grain large building in the middle of the town which needed money spending on it we put together a package which involved borrowing and spending completely revamping the building turning it into a really exciting venue it's totally now self-funded instead of paying a subsidy every year. So actually, it's really conservative thinking in many ways. But because it's at a time of austerity,

you can't borrow and spend, they voted against it. And in one famous case, one of them said, I don't understand this, but I'm voting against it on principle. Politics is largely about confrontation, the way that it's set up, isn't it? And the opposition oppose. That's why they have that name. So of course they have to oppose it, which is insane in, given that most of the issues we're dealing with, we agree about 99% of things actually, but because they do this division thing and it excludes everyone else, although politicians often get in and say, right, now I represent everybody. Of course, I'm a Tory or I'm Labour. You know, I got in with Labour votes, but now I'm going to represent everybody. They don't. They represent their own people. So there are those really big problems that exist, I think, which we just don't need at this level.

This show is called Upstream because it's about going up to the the real root of the problem so what would you say is the the real fundamental root of the problem and and what's kind of the reasons behind it okay i rushed up your river then so to speak um when you were saying that with about four answers and and uh you know because actually i think the real problem is that there's not enough power at a grassroots level, which is not what I thought I was going to say when you started asking the question. And there's a huge problem with that, that if there was enough power, you need to have the quality to use it. If decision making was properly passed down to the people, it's obviously highly abusable in a sense. So then you need to have a group of people who are going to be really on the ball who can make those decisions.

Now, you're not going to get that carter of people at the moment because the decision making that we get is way too lowly. We don't have the money or the decision making to really change things in Froome as we would like. So there's a chicken and egg thing going on. Because of the limits to your power and your ability. And the Localism Act, which is what that quote I gave earlier from David Cameron, you know, that was what he was talking about at that time, the need to really push power down to a local level. It hasn't done it. Or what it's done is it's pushed it down only to the district level, not to our level. Actually, in a way, rightly, because a lot of the councils

at this level are totally dysfunctional. So we would kind of be wrong. But the money and the decision making is held at a higher level, where people don't come from Froome, where they don't really have a connection with here, where they don't know what's going on. So there's a real problem in the whole way that this works. And as I say, there's a chicken and egg thing going on there that's very hard to see a way out of. And so how was it received this first time? Who got involved in that first election that wasn't involved before? Who have you seen become engaged as a result? In that first election, we very deliberately did two things. One, we made it fun. We went for a lot of things which were very upbeat and very entertaining. And we also took out of the equation the whole confrontation bit. So what would

normally happen and what would definitely happen in any town in Britain is that the local papers would have a whole series of letters with people just insulting each other. So one lot would say one thing and then the other lot say the opposite. And for the public, it's just a huge turn off because you don't know who's telling the truth. So we didn't do any of that. So we were ruthlessly positive and we didn't enter into any of the sort of petty stuff and we ignored all the sort of stuff that was flung at us, which there was quite a lot of actually, to our surprise. Even though you all didn't agree, right? All of you who ran as independents at Froome, you weren't all in the same mindset or opinion, but you all didn't agree right all of you who ran as independents of frum you weren't all in the same mindset or opinion but you just didn't bring up those differences um

therein lies an interesting point we don't agree about issues but what we did agree was a way to work together so because we felt that that's that's what was key and that actually we probably do agree about most things or probably do agree about most things, or certainly we agree about most things that are relevant to Froome. We might not agree about, I don't know, immigration policy. At this level of government, we don't deal with immigration policy. So it doesn't matter. So that's one of the absolutely key things, I think,

that we excluded from the discussions amongst ourselves. Or certainly they weren't on the agenda, the things that didn't need to be. Because humankind, again, perhaps because of the history of politics, tends to go for the things that we disagree on, rather than recognising that the vast majority of things we knew, and most of the people of Froome would know, what the things we want to do are.

So there was no, we didn't have that kind of problem in that sort of a way. So how did you agree to work together? What were the some of the points? Okay, so very early on in this process, one of us was and is a guy called Melasha, who had worked in local government before on the other side. So he was chief executive of a district council near here, not our district council, but another one. So he knew the game from the inside out, but not as a politician, if you like. None of us had been local politicians before. And I asked him whether he knew of groups of independents functioning well,

because he worked as a consultant all over the country with different councils. And after some staring at the ceiling, the answer was no. He could give me half a dozen examples of chaos and none of where this had worked. And the chaos tended to come because independents come together over a single issue usually. So they're anti a bypass or they want to oppose something. So they run that campaign, they get in on the back of that campaign, and then they realise that they all hate each other and have nothing in common, and have no way of working. And the other thing is that independents historically tend to be people who have been chucked out of their parties because they're too extreme. So they're fairly extreme individuals with very strongly held views. So when they come together, they can't, you know, hold that together. So we realised right at the

beginning that we needed to put together an agreement about how we would work. So we created a way of working, which is essentially about, I think, about behaving as one would normally in families and in groups and in, you know, the way that people behave. Not in this concocted way that people feel they have to once they're elected into these positions so the key things in that are about not hold essentially not holding grudges about listening there's a number of points really about listening and being prepared to change and one of the things that we've encouraged is admitting mistakes and learning from them and making U-turns. Again, there's a whole political no-no of, you know, showing strength by never changing your mind and doing a U-turn, which is such a nonsense when you find some other information. I mean, in normal life, all the time we're doing that, aren't we?

You didn't realise that something was going to happen. Oh, it's that time. I thought it was this time. In that case, let's do this, you know. But yet somehow there's this thing about strength and not showing weakness. So that's what they're essentially about. They're about being able to listen and change your mind and accept that other people have more expertise in certain areas. Because that's the other very odd thing, that people once elected suddenly become experts. I mean, the only expertise you've shown is in getting elected.

And of course, there are things that each of us knows about. suddenly become experts. The only expertise you've shown is in getting elected. And of course, there are things that each of us knows about. So I may know about corridors of biodiversity. It doesn't mean I know anything at all about economic development. So we've tried really hard to then recognise that and bring in the wider community to inform us where we don't know. So when somebody looks at who they're going to vote for and they see independence, I can imagine that sometimes people would think

they don't really know how that person's going to make decisions because they're not associated with the party. Maybe that's one good thing about a party. They can kind of see someone's name, see their party, and kind of get a quick flavor for how they're going to vote. And so are you saying that people were instead voting based on this is how we're going to work together And so are you saying that people were instead voting based on this is how we're going to work together, rather than who you are as your fixed opinions,

because you don't actually have fixed opinions, you're more going in with a willingness to work for Froome? Yes. And now I hear you saying it, and it's exactly what I've said a number of times. It's a difficult sell in lots of ways, because that's exactly what we're saying. We're saying this is who I am as an individual. So we, unlike the party people, you know, if you went on the website, there was Peter McFadden, this is what I'd done in Froome, this is who I am, this is what I,

what the roles I've played in this community. Because if you went on to a political person, you'd just get their name. They don't have a Froome website. You'll just get, you know, Joe Bloggs, Tory, and then exactly what you say. Okay, so I know the kind of things that this person is likely to be into. But you don't really, you don't know anything about who they are, or how they'll behave, or how angry they get, or not that I would say how angry I get on my website. So, I mean, that whole thing to me is a fraud, really. Somebody standing under a party, again, at this level, they just get a colour stamped on them. And then people go, oh, yeah, I'm a Tory, I'll vote blue.

I'm Labour, they're red, I'll vote for them. It's such a crude way of doing things. And the other thing is that we don't, yeah, we didn't have a manifesto. So, of course, we couldn't say we will do this, this and this. All we could say is we will behave in a different way once elected which meant a lot more participation and engagement and properly listening so again we were sort of promising to behave in a way so there's a degree of trust in there of course but the alternative is that people say here is my manifesto now at a local level they don't even bother to do that

so they say kind of guess what our manifesto might be but anyway even at a local level, they don't even bother to do that. So they say, kind of guess what our manifesto might be. But anyway, even at a national level, they say, here's our manifesto, here's our set of promises. And then they proceed to break them, invariably. Things come in that weren't in there. Sometimes it's not their fault. Something like, you know, shall we bomb Syria wasn't in the manifesto because that wasn't a choice when they were writing the manifesto, you know, so things happen. But they usually don't stick to them and they invent other things that weren't in there. So it's a completely fraudulent system, I think. But we still, or the population generally, feel safer with that somehow. They feel safer with this fiction of a manifesto and a sort of ideology which you kind of basically know what it is,

than risking going for someone who says, this is how I work. Except in Froome, where we were able to sell that. Yeah, and it seems like one of the big things is if a politician's role is to actually be kind of a conduit or like in service for the community, then really it's not about how you as an individual think and feel and vote. It's you're representing the people and the people's needs. like in service for the community, then really it's not about how you as an individual think

and feel and vote. It's you're representing the people and the people's needs. So ideally, you'd hear from them what's important to them and then vote in that way. So you'd kind of be in service to what they want. But that implies a great deal of engagement and voice that you're actually listening and hearing from people. So, and I know this is from your book, Flat Pack Democracy, this is a big problem in politics that people aren't engaged and aren't speaking. So who is kind of engaged now that there's independence of Froome and who is still maybe not engaged or not heard? What you just described then, I think, is the difference between representative and participative democracy, effectively. So what we have mostly in Britain and in Western democracy

is representative, where you elect somebody based on their manifesto and what they say they're going to do for the next four years. They get elected and then you never hear from them again. And there's no contact, effectively. There might be little bits and pieces until a few months before the election. And then, whoa, what do you know?

They're writing letters and all over the place and suddenly they're asking you questions and so on the alternative is to say okay i'm going to represent you and have a constant relationship with you which is a much more in many ways a more difficult thing to do but i think that there's a huge interest in politics even though there's a small and diminishing interest in party politics so that actually people are massively involved in discussing the things that matter to them when you look at sort of facebook sites around frome interest in party politics so that actually people are massively involved in discussing the things that matter to them when you look at sort of facebook sites around for him there are all sorts of discussions popping up of people being cross about this or wanting this or you

know there's masses of community engagement which to me is politics and so our role is to tap into that really because because it's already happening we don't need to invent it and then to facilitate those people to get what they want and to enhance what they want because they are creating the well-being and the engines that drive you know the important bits of our society so you know we don't need to completely reinvent things one thing which we did reinvent and it wasn't that our, in the second election, so the second time around, so last year, we put in place a set of panels. So we won, when we came back, so in the 2015 election, we stood in every seat and won all 17 of them. And immediately after that, we got rid of all the committees and put in place these panels. And the idea of those, there was a borrowed idea from Podemos, the Spanish politicians,

panels. And the idea of those, there was a borrowed idea from Podemos, the Spanish politicians, that you brought together large numbers or significant numbers of people around a given issue. And they met quite tightly, in other words, quite clear terms of reference around that issue. And then that moved straight into strategy and funding and got done. So you were broadening the real engagement with people. So we've done four of those and we're in the middle of the, well, just started the fifth. And that's definitely hugely increased sort of real engagement by people in Froome.

And what are the themes of those? So those were sport, the town centre and its development, cleanliness, again, of sort streets and and the town centre and well-being were the first four and then now we're doing one on the performing arts as i say that well the first performing arts one was last week there were 50 people many of whom i'd never seen before and definitely would not have come to a council meeting and well i asked actually what i said at the beginning most of you lot wouldn't come to a council meeting would you you know and never have no you know so it's it's a way, most of you lot wouldn't come to a council meeting, would you? You know, and never have. No, you know.

So it's a way of kind of bringing people in because it's a subject that they were all passionate about. That one was looking particularly at venues around Froome 4 arts activities. And then others will go on to look at performing and other particular focuses. So that's worked really well. And then we employ now two full-time and one part-time person who are community project officers so are supporting projects in the community we put a tenth of our budget into supporting community organizations which is 10 times more than when we came in and we contract in someone to support particularly to support community fundraising, to bring more money and support in to support all that kind of people.

So it's engagement and participation, not in the sense that they're necessarily coming to meetings, although far more people do, but I think it's bringing people into politics, in a sense without realising it. I don't mean to sound Machiavellian, but probably even if you went and said to them now, are you involved with Froome's politics? you know I run the the um Fair Froome I'm not

involved with the politics you know but I'm thinking so Fair Froome distributes food boxes to people who can't afford food and campaigns around food issues if that's not politics what is you know but I suspect if you ask those volunteers they would say no no no I'm not I don't like you know I don't have anything to do with politics. So I think it's a way of expanding the definition of politics, really, to me. And so how would you define politics? Well, for me, it is that being involved in the issues that affect your life and being prepared to think through, you know, what might change and how one might change that. And how would you define economics?

Okay, so economics is definitely way broader for me than money. So it's definitely those three stools of the environment and people and, yeah, well-being or prosperity. So prosperity is in there. But I think one of the things that we as a society have got badly wrong is by defining economics around how much is in your pay package. So the environment in which we live and the well-being of the people are right up there for me. And so you said that, you know, people responded well, the first election. And then the second election, will you tell us what happened and maybe what you saw was different?

the second election will you tell us what happened and maybe what what you saw was different so i thought what would happen in the second election was that the party politicians wouldn't bother to stand that they would put their energy into the other levels the the district and the county and the national level and put their their campaigning time into that because we all live in a relatively small community of 27 000 people so we all know each other or you know they they have benefited from a prize-winning you know massively successful council um how wrong i was so so in fact 50 people stood for those 17 seats of all the parties is that the most amount of people standing yeah i'm sure it is i can't imagine i mean as i said before you know out of 50 possible elections in this district there were only six so there are

of all the parishes and towns around the whole area in only six places were there enough candidates to actually have elections so Froome's was clearly totally ridiculous in the sense of that in the first elections in the 2011 there were 75 percent more people voted it's slightly complicated to work out how many more voted the second because there are more than one candidate in wards. But there was way more interest and way more activity and far more leafleting and people out there. And the election was the same day as the national election, and as I said, all others, and our count came last.

So in all the first counts, the national ones and the district and the county, the Tories had won easily, won everything. so i wasn't going to go to the count i was thinking i'm not i'm not having anything to do with this this is a disaster everyone would have just gone tory tory tory you know and because that's what they do and how wrong i was i was persuaded to go and um and i'm glad i did because it's good theater actually because there are lots of tables with bits of paper um sitting around on them. And you can look at the piles of paper and go, oh, that's big. What's that? And look at it and go, oh, OK.

And some of them were very close. And, you know, in the end, we did indeed win the whole lot, which is definitely unique in the sense of what we were trying to do, which is to effectively say that Froome does not want party politics. How did that feel, that moment when you realised it? It's very difficult not to be triumphal, I have to say. You know, which of course I'm not, because I'm, you know, a state and, you know, that's not how I want to behave. But of course it is, because I mean, it was much bigger, really, the second time, because the first time we were just selling change and us, the second time had to be on what we'd done. So people had gone, oh,

you know, this is the last lot. The original lot aren't doing a good job. Let's bring in this lot. So we had to have done something that people really applauded and supported. So yeah, it was a real vindication of what we'd done. It was exciting. I have heard on numerous occasions, people ask you if you're going to get involved with politics at other levels or further on getting involved with politics. and i've heard you say no no i want to go back to gardening i want to do other things um and yet you're going to other towns you're going to conferences and you're helping other independence groups form and and and helping them so i'm wondering has your view changed on getting getting involved in politics? Or do you feel like this level is kind of where you're interested in kind of connecting people?

Yeah, this level is definitely where I'm interested in. I mean, I see leadership as being about joining people together and joining the dots and, you know, and helping communities to function. I don't think the way that politics is set up functions. It's not particularly about the individuals. I mean, in some cases it is, but actually it doesn't work. And so I wouldn't want to be part of something that I fundamentally think doesn't work. And so I think that the only way to change that is from the bottom up. Although I'm realising that's probably impossible in my lifetime I don't know it feels a huge battle and actually I'm also the thing that motivates me most are environmental issues

and and climate change issues and so it's finding a role for that I think I'd get lost in all the other stuff even as leader because I'm leader of the town council now and even as leader of the town council the range of other things that I get involved in which aren't really either my strength or what really interests me means I you know I won't do that for much longer. So is what happened in Froome replicable? A much-asked question. It has been replicated so by definition it is in a couple of towns. Liscard and Buckfastley spring to mind but we've just had a weekend of elections in Britain. And there was one in particular where I thought they might really do as well as us, which is a place called Sutton Coalfield in Birmingham.

It's now the largest parish council in Britain. It's a new parish council because if the people want a parish council in a metropolis, they can vote to have one. So the people had come together non-politically decided they wanted this and they were campaigning really well I thought and they won four out of 20 something seats you know with Tories winning all the rest which was a real disappointment and then other places were actually fighting elections over the weekend or last week. Mostly they'd started really late.

So, you know, it was always going to be a struggle. But I don't know. At the moment, I'm feeling slightly disheartened that a British thing, which is always there of not liking change. It seems that the British people don't like change and don't like to take risks. And one of the other things that we as a town have been able to do now is to really take risks. But I don't know. So I'm not sure if it's replicable now.

It depends what day you ask me. I mean, it ought to be because what we have at the moment is so patently dysfunctional. It doesn't work. It's not fit for the 21st century. And a lot of the way that councils operate is just so antiquated. It's terrible. And so unless there's a bit of a revolution that's going to come in with a new broom and sweep out some of the stuff that goes on, we're stuck with a lower level of government, which is incapable of feeding up to the higher levels. And I don't see how the pyramid works if the bottom level is really, really stuck somewhere.

What do you think this fear of change and fear of risk taking is about if we went upstream? What is that? What is that about in British culture, British belief? I don't know if I know. Some of it's a sort of thing about my home is my castle. I mean, it's a sort of like a safety thing, I think. It was true in the Scottish elections. They had a unique opportunity to take a bit of a leap into the dark and didn't at the end. Britain leaving the EU? Because have we been in the EU long enough? Which is changed? Do we revert to sort of rule Britannia and, you know, the empire? Or have we been in the European Union for long enough that that's the status quo? I suspect so. I think people will not want to

change from that when it comes to it. So I don't know. I think as a nation, the British are conservative with a small c rather than necessarily, you know, party political conservative, although we're that as well, it seems. And we like to stick to where we're at. The problem with that is that the world is changing around us. And we're getting left behind so fast, I think. the issues where the council's power is limited and higher level changes are what's needed? So where are the things where as a council, you can't really make a change because of this pyramid structure, as you said? The most obvious one is that we don't have power over planning. So Froome is due to gain another seven and a half thousand people over the next few years. So multiply the size of Froome by 25%. So that was very significantly changed the town. And we've got no say over how and where that happens. Even if we accepted that that comes from central government, if you like, it seems crackers that we as the people who live here have almost no

control over where housing should be built, the nature of that housing. So there are decisions being made and inflicted upon us, which this population will have to live with for years and some of them are terrible they're just silly because people don't live here so they haven't thought this through the most obvious one i can think of is a large housing estate where the only route off goes through a road which which floods every winter it's flooded for years but yet there appears to be no money to do anything about that or to do anything else. So what's going to happen? There's 450 houses who are going to be trapped there. How do you get to school or work? I mean, and everybody seems to say it's somebody else's problem. So I mean, that's a bit of a glaringly obvious one. But there's all sorts of

ways in which we should be more involved in planning. And we're only advisory and we're usually ignored. What about the neighborhood planning process? Yeah, so the neighborhood planning is again, is part of localism. So this localism act, which came in 2011, which theoretically gives a lot more powers. So we were a forerunner of that. So we started straight away in getting a neighborhood plan on the table, on the statute books. We're now five years away and it's just about to go to a referendum. During that time, there've been all sorts of houses built and, you know, other developments, which the neighbourhood plan was against. And also a number of the features in it have been so watered

down that some of its power at least will be lost. It will be useful. I mean, it will help in some ways, but it's going to be too little too late in too many others. What is a neighborhood plan? So the neighborhood plan was set up as part of this Localism Act that I mentioned before. And it gives real power to local people. The idea is that it actually enables people at the most local level to say where development should happen. So it's essentially, it's a development plan, but it's saying what kind of development should happen where and the nature of that development. We have done one quite interesting thing which has survived, which is

we've said that we want One Planet Living to underpin as an ethos everything that happens. And rather to our surprise, the government inspectors let that stay in, but only as a sort of ethos. It doesn't have power. So if a developer comes and wants to build a housing estate with really terrible insulation and it doesn't fulfil any of our environmental objectives,

we might be able to use that to put pressure on them to up them, but we can't legally force them to do it. So it's a bit of a mixed thing. But, you know, it's great to have that because it's off that that we've been able to build aspirations to become fossil free and things like that, which we're currently working on. So it's allowing us as a town to behave bigger than we are, which is one of the things that I'm really keen on. I think it's really important that we have global aspirations, even though we're only a tiny little town in Somerset. So part of it is you're not able to do like punishments or, you know, legal

processes to combat certain things, but you can make incentives or you can lead by example. I'm assuming you can't change the minimum wage in Froome. You can't up taxes except for the council tax. So there's limitations. So just leading by example and incentives and kind of ethos and planning, these are kind of the main areas. Yeah, and we can do that. So we are supporting Fair Froome in a campaign around the minimum wage, you know, so putting pressure on businesses, we as a council can behave in the way that we want. So we very rarely, in fact, well, it is very rarely, we have a whole ethical matrix and the way that we make our decisions as a town council, the district and the county don't, but we can. And so we can, yeah, exactly, we can put pressure on them, hopefully

make them feel guilty, illustrate some of the ways in which they do things where we're going oh that's a bit off i mean i'll give you a really good example the all the council pensions are run by one huge company you can find out where where all that is a huge list of um have all the different chairs that they own they include tobacco arms everything that you can possibly think of. You know, this is a council that spends lots of money on health, on things like presumably anti-tobacco campaigns or, you know, anti-smoking campaigns, but yet is investing its money. So we can't do anything about that, but we can point out the absurdity of it.

So I've heard of something about a divide between people born in Froome and people moving in. What would you say, what is this divide about? And do you think it exists? And what do you think are some of the ways or the things that can be done to address it? So I don't think it is a divide. I think it's much more complicated than that. I think you'll find if you went to almost any town, particularly rural town in Britain, you'll get that same thing of people who've lived here forever and newcomers. And newcomer, to be honest, it needs to be a generation or more, you know. So I've, you know, my children were born here, I've been here 30 years, but I'm still clearly, you know, an incomer in that way. So it's much more fuzzy than that, I think. There's not a clear

division. I think it crosses over clearly into class and into poverty those two being interrelated but not obviously the same thing either so it's more it's it's not as simple as saying there are people who've always lived here and people who haven't and as a town council roughly half of us are people who were born and bred here and half who weren't which again is fairly unique because nearly all councils tend to be people coming in. I think partly because they want to, it's something about wanting to find your family in a way when you come to a town. When I say coming in, you might be in here 10, 15, 20 years, but you weren't actually born and bred here.

So it's much more complicated than simply saying that there are people in Froome who've lived here forever and those who aren't. Partly because also there are pockets of poverty. Some of the poorest communities in certainly the county and actually one in one case in Britain are in Froome. So as well as a lot of new people who've come in who you know have brought London wealth and their aspirations and the way that they are is much more obvious partly too. So it's easy to knock I think when you see that. So that's a bit of a rambly answer. But I think it's something that a sociologist could spend years on. I've heard it both described these kind of developments, the changes, particularly on

St. Catherine's Hill. I've heard it described by some people as gentrification and some people as regeneration. I'm wondering what you think about those terms or how you see the changes over the past 10 years. I guess both are true in a sense. You could use both terms. Go back even further. When we came to Froome 25 years ago, Catherine Hill was basically boarded up. So there was nothing. There were shops, but they'd all closed in a recession. And then some of them turned into houses and then some of those have turned back into shops now and so now it's a hill with it's all useless stuff really isn't it i mean you know it's all it's antiques or it's things that you don't need it's um it's presence and i've i've often thought it's very vulnerable to further recession but a lot of those businesses are actually have an

internet business behind them so it's not just the shop i don't know it's it's hard people people knock the uh the big market so the first sunday of every month there's this massive market ten thousand people come to froom you know and they say oh you know you can buy an almond croissant for three quid you know what is a croissant anyway it's sort of like it's not for me what there used to be before was that there was a man who sells newspapers on a windowsill of the hotel that was it you know and some tumbleweed blowing through the town. You don't have to go.

You know, you can stay at home and watch the Grand Prix. That kind of thing definitely brings an excitement and a buzz and a lot of money to those who want to take advantage of it. And in that particular case, they have a very strong ethos around using local businesses and supporting local business and local traders and so on. I mean, what the council, as we mentioned before, is really pushing for is that that's done in a way which takes into account wellbeing and environmental issues. So I'm perfectly happy about

it as long as it does that. I'm not happy, or I wouldn't be happy, if there was simply more economic activity that disappeared out of the town. So Froome's got a growing reputation for small independent shops where the money will tend to circulate much more rather than just disappearing off to shareholders in who knows where. So I don't mind that. I suppose gentrification is a bit insulting isn't it and we clearly have a very significant housing and accommodation problem which has come probably, or is at least exacerbated by that. You know, house prices have risen a lot, as they have everywhere throughout the South West. So it's not just an issue of here. And as a council, we're looking at that

very hard. We're acquiring land for self-build, and we're looking at other ways of doing things and supporting a group that are looking at promoting lodging and lodgers and trying to get even sort of simple ideas going. But that's a sort of national issue, not just a free one. But again, it's easy to sort of knock people who've come from somewhere and paid a bit more for houses. It's more complicated than just thinking that we could have sat here in a time warp and house prices would still be a tenth of the national average. Yeah, when I look kind of that upstream perspective on what is gentrification, it's not, you know, person versus person. It's not blaming the people who moved in or anything like that.

It's looking at inequality and inequality rising and the minimum wage being stagnant and all those kind of things. So yeah, but it's hard, again, again like you're saying to see the systems level things that are going on especially when some things are at the national level we're big enough as a town though to have quite a lot of diversity and as a town council what we're trying to do is to support that so that we're not let's say totally dependent on a on i forgot what the polite word is for all that stuff you don't really want antiques but not antiques anyway um you were saying the council has a way of dealing with that yeah so as a council and what we're trying to do is to encourage for instance a lot of green and environmental business because there's now a sort of critical mass we think of about 10 15 businesses

some of whom are really cutting edge is one's one called Protomax, which is particularly, which is, we've got their research and development bit in Froome, and they are, you know, a company who are doing some really world-beating work on recycling and things like that. And there are now a collection of others, because we think that if there's enough businesses like that linked to us as a town saying,

look, we want to be frack-free, but we also want to be fossil-free we're you know we're stating aspirations around this being an environmentally conscious place we're also then putting money into the environment around so you know there are nice places to walk and be in no we'll attract that kind of thing so we're not dependent only on what i still think are quite vulnerable businesses around commerce. So buying and selling antiques or, you know, that kind of thing. So we're trying to broaden that. And as I say, there's enough people here and enough space to do that. So you mentioned well-being. So I'm wondering, you know, there's conversations around well-being and potentially, you know, the idea of happiness

and as a town strategy. So what's your connection and interest with this idea of happiness and as a town strategy. So what's your connection and interest with this idea of happiness and well-being and how it could be somehow utilised at the council level? So long, long ago in the mists of time, I realised, not only me, I have to say, that GDP, gross domestic product, was a completely insane way of measuring progress or using as a way to determine policy. So I mean, I've always felt that measuring success by money was not how it should be done. I suppose that's true personally for, I know, I and Annabelle and our family, but also for communities. And so I've followed or known about Bhutan and gross national happiness for years or since it began. I'd never done enough about it, but I've been aware through

New Economics Foundation and others of other ways of knowing whether what we're doing is actually increasing people's well-being. I suppose I prefer well-being to happiness in a way, but I mean, that is ultimately what we're talking about. So we do want to look at that in Froome and to put that into the way that we measure whether we're succeeding. And a chunk of our strategy, a third of it is all around well-being, particularly on things like mental health, where, again, because of austerity, services that there would have been in Britain

are being cut and cut and cut and cut. So if there are mental health issues here, there would have been services that came from above, from the county and from the district and from the National Health Service. Now there aren't. If they exist at all, there'll be fewer and all private. And there is clearly some really big problems and challenges. Again, not just in Froome.

You know, we've had a little spate of suicide amongst young men, which is really sort of shocking in the sense that these are people who everybody knows, completely unexpected. And that's really given people a new sort of edge to this. And it's something that as a community, we need to work out what we're going to do about because no one else is going to do it for us. So those things are very much in our utmost thoughts, really. So as I look at well-being in a community, and I can think of ways that an individual can work on their well-being, you know, meditation or giving, you know, helping their neighbors, and then also how a local community can increase well-being,

such as increasing a sharing economy or gift economy and those kind of things. But one of my worries is that if we have these systemic issues and we kind of focus on the individual and the relational things in a community, then as there's more and more cuts or as there's big systemic problems, it's almost like a band-aid in the local community, then as there's more and more cuts or as there's big systemic problems, it's almost like a band-aid on in the local community and it's keeping people safe and, you know, it could even keep people from suicide. And so I definitely think that's important. But without continuing to think about the national level and fighting these kind of systemic issues, then it can actually be kind of maybe even a distraction to kind of focus on this local level. So I'm wondering, how do you recommend both holding this local, you know, individual relational thing while still

trying to change things at the national level? Or do you feel like changing things at the national level is just really challenging? Like, what would you recommend for how to hold that balance? Of course, it's challenging. But I think you, you have to have both in there. I've always believed in act local think global. I came to Froome to work for a social justice charity that works with the rights of disabled people so I was incredibly lucky in living here and involved in community issues at a local level but also going out so working a lot of the time in Africa on much bigger issues affecting many hundreds of people, or many thousands of people through legislation.

And that's why I think, you know, the fact that Froome is a fair trade town, the fact that we're, you know, very overtly frack-free, the fact that we're looking now to becoming fossil-free, and then really stating that in a big way and then trying to connect with other towns and then put pressure on the government. So effectively be saying you went to Paris and said you would do these things around the environment you haven't. Now this is what you could do this is what we the people are saying in order to fulfill what you said and look there's all these towns. But I think you're right that it is tricky because the energy that's taken up in the local can often take all your energy. But some of those things can be things like street parties.

So as a town council, we've made it much easier for people to have street parties and we're helping to subsidise them and we'll support you to have a street party. It's not much for us to do in many ways, but that's a way of people connecting that is low cost and potentially really high outcome, I think. But I think you're absolutely right. We also need to be campaigning, which is where Fairfroom, which I've mentioned a couple of times, we as a town council initiated and continue to support, that does the very practical things of handing out food parcels to people who can't afford food. But it's also campaigning nationally and constantly pushing for things like you know on issues like greater equality and working with the equality trust to do that kind of thing so I think you have to do both and actually I've always got the energy from doing the local because

you've got that personal connection to then do the big one because I did also sometimes feel there was one period when I was more in Froome and I wasn't overseas at all or wasn't involved in bigger issues when I started to think you know yeah but actually I'm just fiddling around in Froome and I like that bigger connection I mean you mentioned me going out I mean so I'm going to something called um Demokfest this weekend near Chester which is a bunch of radical politician-y people getting together to talk about other models. I may or may not come back with ideas that are relevant to Froome, but it's good personally.

But hopefully I can also feed in some of our experience and that will influence other people. We've got one of the founders of the Danish alternative movement coming back to Froome in a couple of weeks to run a little workshop on thinking about those kinds of kinds of issues so i think i think you've got to do both so overall as you go to you went to a how to how to do it creating bottom-up political participation conference and you mentioned the conference you're going to this weekend you're connecting with people on a national level and an international level so you were saying you were feeling a little disheartened recently, but then is it also a little bit of inspiration around kind of a more global movement?

Yeah, I think there is. I mean, I'm probably horribly naive, but I can't believe that humankind will allow itself to be dominated by the politicians who currently dominate it. I can't really believe that we will all shuffle off the edge with some of the people who've managed to get themselves into these leadership positions and with the sort of totally capitalist growth approach that is so clearly going to push us off the edge. So I suppose I will continue to believe that people will at some point realise that those things don't work

and do something about it. Going back to the ethical, you said there's an ethical framework for making decisions at the council level, because that's kind of what Bhutan has. They have the nine indicators of how they make decisions. So if you're looking at more bringing in well-being, are you looking at changing those ethical frameworks or complementing them? Or what would a strategy based on GNH add to what you're already doing? I doubt it will change things radically if we go down a more well-being route. Because I think, well, certainly I hope that we're doing a lot of those things already. But that's what maybe getting more engaged in the room with those sorts of ideas will

help us to refine those views and to realize that perhaps with relatively little tweaking, we can make a big difference. So last question, how did it feel to do this interview and kind of any last words that you have? It's felt fine doing it. It's been an enjoyable conversation. It makes me realize that I do care about these things, you know, because as I said before, after a weekend of not particularly good election results, you think, oh, sod it.

Maybe I'm, you know, why am I wasting my time with this? None of this is paid, you know. It's not how I make my living. But so it does make me think, oh, actually, maybe there are some good things. There's definitely some good things in Froome, and maybe they are replicable and so on, you know, and maybe there are more people out there.

The Danes are very exciting. I like them. Alternative party, well worth Googling. And is there anything else I'd like to say? No, not really. I don't think. I wonder what I can immediately think of that we haven't already covered. Anything about the US? Anything hopeful there? Anything hopeful in the US?

Well, I do think it's absolutely fascinating the extent to which, you know, the rise of Donald Trump is a a rejection of ordinary politics i mean the fact that he's clearly not fit to run anything well perhaps he's fit to run the sort of businesses that screw other people and make a lot of money but um i'm not sure about anything else but i mean it's kind of almost beside the point the fact that people are prepared to come out in large numbers, it's really a rejection of the status quo and realizing how powerless you are. And here's someone who says he can do anything because he'll change his mind at a drop of a hat. So he'll tell you one thing one day and then the next the other in order to get a vote.

So it's completely the whole system is meaningless. I'm amused by the fact that the Chinese, the state Chinese government has been, you know, tweeting and and and so on around, you know, the American elections rather gleefully sort of going, well, you know, so this is democracy. Have this if you like, you know, and actually I'm with the Chinese. Wonderful. Well, thank you, Peter, for your time and for this interview today. It's a pleasure. You've been listening to an Upstream interview

with Peter McFadden. For more episodes and interviews, please visit upstreampodcast.org. The smoke is rising in the hallways Flowers blooming from our boats that break To the morning we run To shoreline Calling us to speak outside Waves under the earth and the rocks

The rocks, passing mostly shadows, tall like nylons As we set fire to the sea As we set fire to the sea As we set fire to the sea Snowgates rising in the hallways Flowers blooming from our boats that break Into the morning we run To the shoreline Calling us to speak faster

Plates under the earth and walls Crossing mostly shadows Tall and giant Tall like giants As we set fire to the sea As we set fire to the sea As we set fire to the sea As we set fire to the sea Cause we set fire to the sea

Cause we set fire to the sea